Certification of post-consumer recycled content gold jewelry

ABSTRACT

A method of providing a metal includes providing a discarded manufactured object that includes a metal. The metal is removed from the discarded manufactured object. The removed metal is certified as including removed metal from a discarded manufactured object. The removed metal is incorporated into a second manufactured object. The second manufactured object may be labeled as including the removed metal.

This application claims priority of Provisional Patent Application 60/556,519, filed Mar. 26, 2004, incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD

This patent application generally relates to precious metals. More particularly it relates to a method of processing precious metals. Even more particularly it relates to a method for certifying post-consumer recycled content precious metals.

BACKGROUND

According to a report issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2001, “the metal mining industry reported the largest total releases [of toxic chemicals] on- and off-site in 2001. The 2.78 billion pounds of total releases in 2001 reported by metal mining facilities accounted for 45 percent of all releases on- and off-site in 2001.” http://www.epa.gov/tri/tridata/tri01/press/executivesummarystandalone.pdf

Gold mining leaves a particularly harmful environmental footprint, the release of cyanide or mercury into the environment and huge toxic waste piles around mines.

By contrast, gold extracted from post-consumer waste materials, including electronic devices, such as computers, including the printed circuit boards used in computers and other electronic devices, has involved processes that are relatively environmentally benign. As importantly, extracting and reselling gold from those post-consumer waste materials also helps address a second environmental problem, the disposal of electronics and other heavy-metal bearing devices that would otherwise fill landfills and incinerators.

Thin gold films often found on integrated circuit chips and printed circuit boards are not pure enough to be simply remelted, like old jewelry, teeth, or coins. These thin films of gold are generally layered on other metals and insulators, such as chrome, copper, aluminum, tantalum, lead, and tin. These thin films typically have a thickness that is less than about 100 micrometers. The thickness is frequently less than about 10 micrometers and often less than about 1 micrometer. To recover the gold, the layers of different metals are usually commingled with mined ores at a refinery or smelter. The metals could be removed in a preliminary furnace process which renders the circuit boards into a type of ash which has higher concentrations of gold mixed with other metals. That ash is then further chemically refined to separate out and concentrate the gold. The now separated gold is then sold on the open market.

Many types of scrap from different sources bearing trace amounts of precious metals may be commingled, and the batches of recycled gold are brought to market as a single gold metal commodity along with newly mined gold. Fabricating companies buy gold from this general commodity market without regard to the source of the gold, and then fabricate gold wire, bands, plates, or other shapes that are capable of being formed by jewelers into items such as rings, bracelets, and pendants. Recycled gold mixed with used jewelry, used gold teeth, factory process residues, manufacture stock overruns, newly mined virgin gold or gold recovered from copper mining has been used in many different products, including jewelry. The recycled gold has thus been resold into the general gold marketplace diluted in with pre-consumer gold, used gold, and industrial gold, and there has been no ability to distinguish the recycled gold or mark it as an environmentally benign product distinguished from the other sources of gold.

Furthermore, no process for recovering gold, or other precious metals, from such post-consumer products has been developed that keeps these two source streams separate so, for example, jewelers could make a valid claim that a particular piece of jewelry was made from such recycled gold as that recovered from post-consumer computer scrap, circuit boards, other electronic components, or other materials, including those that may have been identified by EPA as components of problem waste stream materials.

In addition, gold from all sources is assayed and assigned a value according to its purity, grade, alloy, or other chemical marker, and this value travels with the gold. The sole purpose of existing organized methods of certification and documentation is to verify and provide diligence as to the chemical integrity and carat of the material for the purposed of claiming the level of purity of gold in jewelry and other fabricated gold commodities. No extra monetary value has been given to gold according to whether the source of the gold was recycled from a specific targeted waste stream. Also, to the extent there have been environmentally aware purchasers, they have been disappointed if they wanted to select gold jewelry that was entirely produced from recycled content.

Thus, while methods of extracting, commercializing, and using recycled gold have long been available and have long been used, there has been no recognition of any potential to claim additional market value from recycled gold that avoids the significant environmental degradation of newly mined gold. Nor have any of the methods of production satisfied the need to provide recycled gold as a distinguishable product.

To date, claims of “recycled content” in gold have relied on mere remelt of gold, such as old jewelry, coins, and teeth, and not from a post consumer gold source, such as a printed circuit board, for which refining was needed to separate out the thin film of gold from the substrate it was on. Thus, claims of recycled content have not provided gold that was recaptured from a material commonly discarded in the waste stream or that was targeted by EPA for reduction from the municipal solid waste streams. The amount of such post consumer gold in products that have claimed to have recycled content has not been measured, documented, or certified.

SUMMARY

A method of providing a metal includes providing a discarded manufactured object that includes a desired metal. The desired metal is separated from other portions of the discarded manufactured object. A document certifying that the separated metal is from a discarded manufactured object is provided. The separated metal is incorporated into a second manufactured object.

Another aspect is a method of providing a metal. The method includes providing a first manufactured object that includes a thin film of a precious metal. The thin film of precious metal is removed from other portions of the first manufactured object and the removed precious metal is recovered. A document certifying that the removed precious metal includes precious metal removed from a previously manufactured object is provided, and chain of custody of said removed precious metal is provided. The removed precious metal is incorporated into a second manufactured object.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 a is a flow chart showing a prior art process for recycling a precious metal;

FIG. 1 a′ is a flow chart showing another prior art process for recycling a precious metal;

FIG. 1 b is a flow chart showing an embodiment of a process of the present patent application for recycling a precious metal that includes certifying that the precious metal is recycled; and

FIGS. 2 a-2 f is an example of a form that could be used for the certifying.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present applicant recognized substantial commercial value to gold that could be certified as having high recycled gold content or that could be certified as being exclusively recycled gold. The present applicant discovered that there is a distinct marketplace of consumers who are very motivated to purchase gold jewelry from a recycled source, so long as that source can be documented, tracked, and proven to have significant or exclusive recycled content.

Further, the present applicant developed a process for recycling that maintains separation of this recycled gold from newly mined gold or from pre-consumer remelted gold which was not part of the waste stream. He found a way to prevent newly mined, pre-consumer and other non-waste precious metals streams from being commingled with recycled gold or with other post-consumer waste precious metals. One embodiment involves documenting and certifying the recycled post-consumer waste precious metals as such at each of the various stages of its purification, production, and distribution.

Precious metals include such metals as gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. Other metals that may be included are nickel, copper, tantalum, and rhodium.

As used in this patent application the term recycled gold includes gold that has been removed from other materials in a post-consumer manufactured article. It may have been chemically refined to separate the gold from the other materials. For example, refining may be used to separate thin films of gold from other materials on computer chips and circuit boards, or on gold plated pins or gold plated connectors. In these cases the gold may be a layer on or under another metal, such as chrome, copper, aluminum, lead, or tin. Mechanical processes, such as polishing or other abrasive techniques can also be used in some cases.

The term recycled gold as used in this application does not include gold that has merely been remelted, such as remelted gold teeth, remelted coins, or remelted used jewelry.

It is worth noting that such post-consumer items as gold teeth and used jewelry have not been identified by the EPA or by the professional recycling community as a problem waste or as a component of a municipal solid waste stream. Remelting previously refined gold, such as jewelry, coins, or teeth, has not provided any financial relief or resulted in any decrease in pollution from waste disposal sites identified by EPA (such as incinerators or landfills) or portions of the waste stream prioritized for reduction by EPA (such as used cell phones and computers). Objects that have been identified by EPA as a problem waste stream have included those with thin gold layers in which refining or a mechanical separation has been required to separate out the gold from other metals and non-metals in the objects.

The various embodiments of the present applicant's processes provide a way to identify environmentally preferential purchases that originate in the waste stream and make use of them again. The process rewards separation, recycling, documentation, and certification through chain of custody documentation.

In one embodiment, the gold, or other precious metals derived, for example, from post-consumer waste, is escorted along its processing steps to ensure that the material fabricated from the recycling, such as banding or plate gold, can be documented and certified as to its post-consumer waste origins. These fabricated post-consumer recycled precious metal band or plates are then escorted to jewelry molders. The finished jewelry products are then escorted and documented as to their recycled content when offered for sale.

In another embodiment, rather than escorting, a written record of the chain of custody is provided similar to the chain of custody provided for the purity of the gold. In this embodiment, a written record of witnesses of the chain of custody of the gold, from, for example, the scrap computer, through disassembly of the computer into its printed circuit boards, wires, and connectors, through treatment, refining, casting, and retail, serves as documentation of the origin of the gold. This chain of custody documentation allows the final product to be certified according to its post-consumer recycled gold content.

In one embodiment, the process of keeping gold from recycled sources, such as electronic circuitry, separate from “virgin” materials takes advantage of the same human diligence, such as personal witness by a certified jeweler, as the present process of keeping graded gold separate from non-gold contaminants. In traditional processes, the purity of each batch of gold is measured and documented according to the fraction of “tramp metals” alloyed with the gold, which may be classified as impurities. Traditional documentation includes a written record of a test result from a chemical assay of purity and continued documentation of chain of custody after that test result was recorded. This documentation constitutes the prior art method of certification, hallmarking, or other guarantee of the purity of the gold. The purpose of that certification has been to guarantee the gold's purity to the buyer and to ensure that tramp metals (such as lead) were not introduced to replace gold, reducing it's economic value. This traditional documentation has not attested to the source of the gold.

A prior art process for recovering gold from used apparatus, such as used electronic devices, including items such as computers, printers and other office equipment, monitors, TV's, stereo equipment, and other waste appliances that may contain gold is shown in the flow chart of FIG. 1 a.

Such used apparatus is collected, as shown in box 20 of FIG. 1 a. After collection the used apparatus may be delivered to electronics recyclers which dismantle the electric and electronic equipment, as shown in box 21. They then sort the parts according to their level of precious metal content. Non-precious metal containing parts of the waste stream, such as parts fabricated of plastics, aluminum, steel, copper, wood, glass, batteries, and other non-precious metal materials, are separated from parts that may contain precious metals. Non-precious metal containing materials are sent for recycling of those parts, as shown in box 22.

Parts that may contain precious metals include certain printed circuit boards, integrated circuit chips, and connector pins. These may contain enough gold to warrant sending the items to specialty refiners and smelters whose business is in gold recovery. These parts containing recoverable amounts of precious metals are segregated from other parts, as shown in box 23.

Recycled precious metals, such as gold, silver, and platinum are extracted from the precious metals portion of the waste stream in special furnaces or refineries, such as cyanide recovery, as shown in box 24 a, in which these precious metals from recycling are refined along with precious metals from non-post consumer sources, such as newly mined precious metals, used jewelry, industrial waste, or industrial processes.

Precious metals from these mixed sources or from unidentified sources are sold at a price determined by their alloy, purity, etc, as shown in box 25 a

In the process commonly in use, fabricators may purchase this recycled gold along with pre-consumer gold scrap and newly mined gold from the gold commodities market, without respect to the origin of the gold and without distinguishing recycled gold from pre-consumer gold scrap or newly mined gold, as shown in box 26 a. Gold jewelry from these mixed sources is then marketed and sold to consumers with no indication of the recycled gold content, as shown in box 27 a.

Another prior art process for reusing the gold in used stand-alone gold products, such as gold teeth, gold coins, and used gold jewelry, as illustrated in the flow chart of FIG. 1 a′. In this process, the used stand-alone gold products are provided for processing as shown in step 30. Next the used stand-alone gold products are heated to melt them, as shown in step 31. They may be assayed to determine purity. Documentation of purity and source as used gold or even recycled gold may be provided. Then they are remolded into new gold products, as shown in step 32. While mere melting is suitable for products fabricated entirely of gold or a gold alloy, such as jewelry, teeth and coins, the melting of the process of FIG. 1 a′ has not been suitable for recovering gold discarded from manufactured products which only have a thin film of gold on another substrate. Furthermore, stand-alone gold products are never purposely discarded since they obviously have intrinsic value for their gold.

Additional processing beyond mere melting has been needed to remove thin films of gold that are provided on substrates fabricated of other materials. The additional processing usually involves use of a chemical, such as an acid or cyanide. Alternatively it can involve some mechanical process, such as polishing or another form of abrasion to remove the thin firm of gold from its substrate.

In one embodiment of the process of the present application, after the above described processes in boxes 20-23, as shown in FIG. 1 b, which are the same as those of FIG. 1 a, a separate chemical refining is used to recover gold from the segregated precious metals containing parts, as shown in box 24 b.

Batches of this segregated chemically refined gold obtained from this separate chemical refining are kept separate from batches of gold recovered from industrial sludges, old jewelry, newly mined metal, or industrial processes, as shown in box 25 b. These batches are documented and certified as being recovered gold metal batches. The documents may identify the sources of gold, for example, printed circuit boards, as shown in box 26 b and in the example documentation form of FIGS. 2 a-2 e. The recovered gold is assayed and chemically analyzed and the results documented in the form of FIGS. 2 a-2 e along with the percent of recycled source gold. The documentation can also show that the material is fully from recycled used apparatus. Other parameters may be included in the same documentation, such as alloy, percent of tramp metals, etc. Data may be recorded indicating the mass of gold recovered, the percent of gold, and the mass of other valuable products recovered. This record is included in documentation traveling with the gold that was recovered from waste recycling. The batches of recycled gold may be given a label such as “recycled gold scrap,” “mining-free” “recycled gold,” or “environmentally preferred,” or the like. Recycled gold and other recycled precious metals from such recycled waste sources are kept separate from pre-consumer scrap and from newly mined gold.

The documented, certified, segregated recycled precious metal is provided for fabricating items, such as jewelry, as shown in box 27 b. The chain of custody of the recycled gold as it travels through the jewelry fabrication process may be observed to ensure that the jewelry products use the certified recycled gold. After the gold is fabricated into jewelry this final product may also be labeled with a label, such as “environmentally preferred product,” “mining free,” “recycled gold,” or the like. Thus, the precious metal is monitored at the source and throughout the chain of custody, in order to produce an item, such as a wedding band, which a customer can accurately claim originated from a post-consumer recycling program. This documented or labeled recycled gold jewelry is then marketed and sold to consumers, as shown in box 28 b.

The process in this embodiment may add costs compared with the current process of FIG. 1 a, which involves commingling gold from multiple sources. Added costs include those for administration and documentation of custody through several steps, and the costs of accumulating, sorting and keeping distinct batch loads of gold, monitoring small batches of fabricated wire/band/plate, and monitoring the jewelry making process to ensure that the gold used is actually gold that originated from post-consumer recycling. Since documentation including purity and mass information already accompanies gold, the added cost of administering and recording the additional information about source should not be prohibitive. It was the present applicant who recognized that identifying and certifying recycled gold provided value that justified the added cost for environmentally conscientious consumers not actually being served by resellers of remelted jewelry, coins, or teeth who may mistakenly identified their product as “recycled.”

Another embodiment of the process extends the certification process to separately include only specific types of post-consumer precious metals. For example, some consumers may insist on purchasing gold which does not contain any scrap gold from teeth or used gold jewelry. The process described herein can be used, for example, to document that the post-consumer source includes only gold from post-consumer electronic products and that it does not contain used gold from teeth.

One example of a form for certifying percent of gold from recycling, provided in FIGS. 2 a-2 f, provides identification of the specific item of jewelry, the gold lot number, and the scrap lot number. The form provides the initial source of gold, such as printed circuit boards, the scrap batch number of these printed circuit boards, the name of the company doing the recycling, the name of the assayist, and the percent of gold measured by the assayist identified as coming from post-consumer gold. Similar information is provided for each step in the chain, including the refining step, the fabrication of jewelry bands or plates step, and the jeweler step.

In one embodiment, assayists, fabricators, refiners, recyclers and jewelers willing to participate in the certifying scheme first become personally certified. To obtain certification, jewelers, assayists, fabricators, refiners and recyclers install a quality management system which can ensure homogeneity of batches offered for hallmarking. Homogeneity refers to an anticipated need to separate items identified as “recycled” if the percentage of recycled content differs in different batches. This difference may be measured in hundredths of a percentage. Alternatively, batches can be labeled as having at least a certain percentage of post-consumer recycled content. Thus, a particular gold batch may have documentation providing two percentages for that batch, one for the purity of the gold and one for the recycled content. Hallmarking is the physical labeling of jewelry to guarantee its composition with a seal. Hallmarking can also be used to guarantee its origin as from post-consumer used apparatus.

The present application thus provides an accounting process that enables jewelers to document that jewelry they are selling is made from recycled rather than mined sources. The accounting process will provide certainty to buyers that their jewelry comes from recycled post-consumer wastes, such as computers, rather than from newly mined sources. Thus, those consumers who wish to conscientiously refrain from purchasing any gold except for gold which results in a benefit to the environment through reduction of a targeted waste stream, such as obsolete computers or cell phones, can now do so.

While the disclosed methods and systems have been shown and described in connection with illustrated embodiments, various changes may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims. 

1. A method of providing a metal comprising: a. providing a discarded manufactured object that includes a desired metal; b. separating said desired metal from other portions of said discarded manufactured object; c. providing a document certifying that said separated metal is from a discarded manufactured object; and d. incorporating said separated metal into a second manufactured object.
 2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein said desired metal comprises a precious metal.
 3. A method as recited in claim 2, wherein said precious metal comprises at least one from the group including gold, platinum, palladium, and silver.
 4. A method as recited in claim 3, wherein said second manufactured object comprises jewelry.
 5. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein said jewelry includes a wedding ring, a bracelet, or a necklace.
 6. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein said second manufactured object does not include any newly mined gold.
 7. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein said discarded manufactured object is a discarded electronic device, wherein said removed precious metal is gold, wherein said second manufactured object is jewelry, further wherein said certifying includes certifying that said removed precious metal is recycled gold.
 8. A method as recited in claim 7, wherein said certifying further includes certifying the percent of gold that is recycled gold.
 9. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein said discarded manufactured object comprises an electronic device.
 10. A method as recited in claim 9, wherein said electronic device includes at least one from the group including a computer, a computer peripheral device, a cell phone, an integrated circuit chip, a printed circuit board, a connector, and a connector pin.
 11. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein said desired metal includes gold, further comprising independently determining the percent of gold in said discarded manufactured object.
 12. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein said desired metal includes gold, further comprising independently determining percent of gold in at least one from the group including said separated metal and said second manufactured object.
 13. A method as recited in claim 12, further comprising fabricating a jeweler's feedstock before said incorporating, and independently determining percent of gold in said jeweler's feedstock.
 14. A method as recited in claim 12, wherein said certifying includes certifying a first percent of gold in said second manufactured object and also certifying a second percent of gold derived from recycling in said second manufactured object.
 15. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein said certifying includes documenting source material of said separated metal.
 16. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein said certifying includes providing chain of custody of said separated metal.
 17. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising providing a label for said second manufactured object, wherein said label indicates that said second manufactured object includes at least one from the group including recycled, post-consumer, and mining-free.
 18. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein said separating involves providing a chemical.
 19. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein said separating involves a mechanical process.
 20. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising advertising that said second manufactured object includes recycled metal.
 21. A method of providing a metal, comprising: a. providing a first manufactured object that includes a thin film of a precious metal; b. removing said thin film of precious metal from other portions of said first manufactured object and recovering said removed precious metal; c. providing a document certifying that said removed precious metal includes precious metal removed from a previously manufactured object, and providing chain of custody of said removed precious metal; and d. incorporating said removed precious metal into a second manufactured object.
 22. A method as recited in claim 21, wherein in said removing said thin film of precious metal is not mixed with precious metal derived from a source other than manufactured objects having a thin film of precious metal. 